“No!” gasped Mrs. Bateman.
“No!” said Mrs. Plunket, with great sternness. “Then what, pray, is the name of your Aunt Caroline?”
The fair Araminta knitted her brows. Was there ever anything so unlucky? The name of her august relation had passed clean out of her head.
“I don’t remember,” drawled Miss Featherbrain, in the throes of a considerable mental struggle.
“You don’t remember!” said Mrs. Plunket. “Upon my word!”
Mrs. Plunket and Mrs. Bateman subjected Miss Perry to a prolonged scrutiny.
“There,” said Mrs. Bateman, triumphantly, “it is just as I said. She is Sally Dickinson.”
“Try to remember the first letter of your aunt’s name,” said Mrs. Plunket, in a tone which frightened Mrs. Bateman, but which seemed to make no particular impact upon Miss Perry.
That Featherbrain mustered all her battalions to wage herculean warfare. She knitted her brows and clasped her wicker basket still more firmly. In the process of time, as was only to be expected after such a stupendous display of mental energy, an inspiration came to her.
“She’s the Countess of Something!”